London Bridge is Going Up...

About ten years ago I attended a lecture by Paul Shepheard, author of the long-form essay "What is Architecture", at Kansas State University. For some reason, one of the tidbits from his talk that I remember to this day is his mention of St. Paul's Cathedral and a tv/radio tower being the tallest structures in London, each roughly the same height and both equal to (or slightly higher than) the distant hills surrounding the city. He contended that this wasn't a coincidence but a way the city connected itself to the surrounding landscape, the Cathedral symbolically and the broadcast tower technologically, so the signal could reach beyond the hills.

All this came to mind as I read an article in yesterday's BBC News online about the transformation of London's skyline by skyscrapers that are finally puncturing the building cap set by the Cathedral's pinnacle. Of course, Canary Wharf, near Greenwich, is an exception to this rule, as witnessed by the two completed buildings (#2 and #5) in the chart below.


Taken from BBC News online.

But the dense, Medieval fabric of the City has St. Paul's Cathedral as its focus (recently reinforced by the opening of the Tate Modern and the footbridge across the Thames on axis with the church) and any developments that knowingly or unknowingly affect this are seen as a threat by English Heritage and other preservationists. With rising land prices, though, at some point it is going to be required to build higher than the cap for the developer to break even. And I think this is what we're witnessing now, in part.

Also, Londoners are taking a shine to tall buildings, particularly Renzo Piano's design for the London Bridge Tower, affectionately known as the Shard of Glass because of its distinctive, tapering profile. To rise in the Southwark area, the project is seen as a spur for further redevelopment of the South Bank and not having a direct impact on the Cathedral. As well, Norman Foster's Swiss Re Headquarters design, nearing completion, in the City is attracting attention for its unorthodox form and sustainable assets.

With buildings as exciting as these, it's not surprising that residents are warming up to the prospect of building tall, according to the BBC article. In addition to land values, the city and developers are taking into account the centralized locations and extensive tube network, changing the skyline of the city little by little.